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Can i use 8800GT as physics card?

Forum Graphic & Displays : Nvidia - Can i use 8800GT as physics card?

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grunt123   11-12-2008 at 07:42:45 PM

I recently purchased GTX280, and i'm not sure of what to do with my old 8800GT. I heard that you can use it as sort of physics card .... is it possible to do this? (while using GTX 280 as primary gfx card)

thanks in advance

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orangegator   11-12-2008 at 08:04:35 PM
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grunt123 wrote :

I recently purchased GTX280, and i'm not sure of what to do with my old 8800GT. I heard that you can use it as sort of physics card .... is it possible to do this? (while using GTX 280 as primary gfx card)

thanks in advance



yes

Reply to orangegator
grunt123   11-12-2008 at 08:28:24 PM
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Hi,

Do i just plug 8800GT card along with GTX280, and that's it? Do i need some sort of special driver?

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orangegator   11-12-2008 at 08:54:01 PM
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Just plug in both cards (assuming you have 2 pcie x16 slots) and install the newest GeForce drivers from the Nvidia website. It contains the physix drivers. Once installed, you can got to the physix properties menu and set the 8800GT for physix

Reply to orangegator
grunt123   11-12-2008 at 09:08:21 PM
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that's pretty awesome. Thanks for help.

Reply to grunt123
boulard83   11-12-2008 at 09:11:52 PM
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Hey ! juts 1 more question, Is using a PHYSX card really help FPS ??? if you can post a 3dmark Bench before and after ?


I think a simple SLI might be better, but your 2 card arnt the same !


Message edited by boulard83 on 11-12-2008 at 09:35:38 PM
Reply to boulard83
Ares_   11-12-2008 at 09:23:06 PM
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It will work, but i do not know if i would do it just yet.

Almost no games use it, unless you have one game that you play that uses Physx you are just wasting electricity and money having it plunged in.

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grunt123   11-12-2008 at 09:23:53 PM
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From what i've read so far, it depends on what games you are playing since some games support physx and some don't. Usually, if you have just one gfx card (with phyxs enabled), a game tries to do both rendering and physics on the same card. But, if you have a dedicated physx card (GPU physics in this case, i guess), the physics portion is offloaded to the dedicated physics card. I don't know how much performance boost it will bring tho. I just got pc upgrade components, so need to install those parts myself tonight.

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grunt123   11-12-2008 at 09:26:00 PM
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Ares_ wrote :

It will work, but i do not know if i would do it just yet.

Almost no games use it, unless you have one game that you play that uses Physx you are just wasting electricity and money having it plunged in.



good point. Not many games support physx stuff ... although i heard that vegas series support physx. And, UT3 too probably

Reply to grunt123
boulard83   11-12-2008 at 09:33:52 PM
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i just read some reviews from

http://hothardware.com/Articles/BF [...] rd/?page=5

and as you cna see, there are MUCH more detail on the physics..... you bet !
But the FPS goes down, cause there are much more work to be done. The setup they used wasnt a GREAT gaming computer .. the test seems to be dating a bit.

But if your the kind off guy that want all the lill detail to be shown ! just go for physics card, or Link some more impressive Benchmark ;)

Reply to boulard83
icyicy   11-12-2008 at 09:41:39 PM
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The physics will be processed either way, you won't see better physics in any game.
The point of PhysX is to take the strain off the CPU and put it on the GPU.
The point of doing this is to take even that strain of your GTX280 and put it on your 8800GT.

Will it be worth it? Well there are no games that support PhysX that will have any problem running 60+ fps using a single GTX280, mainly because most games do not use Havok or PhysX for their physics, and just do it using the CPU. Which, again, is not a real problem as most CPUs have lots of processing power not utilized when playing games. Maybe that's why they haven't got around to using CUDA yet, too.

Reply to icyicy
orangegator   11-12-2008 at 09:54:00 PM
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Physx doesn't NOT run on the cpu. It runs on an ageia physics card or nvidia gpu. With a a dedicated gpu for physx, you will not see a fps decrease like you would if your main gpu does both.

Reply to orangegator
boulard83   11-12-2008 at 10:38:54 PM
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http://hothardware.com/Articles/BF [...] rd/?page=5

take a look at this review i JUST posted

Reply to boulard83
gamerk316   11-12-2008 at 11:02:48 PM
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PhysX is a specialized physics library. PhysX enabled games have the ability to perform more realistic physics calculations using PhysX, but the CPU is unable to process the information, so it is disabled by default. Either a NVIDIA 8000 series or higher, or the AGIEA PPU is needed to enable PhysX, and only works in PhysX enabled games.

In short, you get better physics at the cost of some FPS (usually not much) in games where PhysX is enabled, but nothing else if the game does not support PhysX.

Reply to gamerk316
boulard83   11-12-2008 at 11:07:30 PM
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haaa thx Gamerk ;)

Reply to boulard83
Silver Graphics badge TheGreatGrapeApe   11-13-2008 at 07:51:52 AM
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Also remember that using the GPU for physics has a higher CPU usage than the dedicated Ageia PPU, so if you're very CPU bottlenecked the advantage may not be worth the effort.

It's a neat idea and if the effects make you enjoy the game better, it's worth a cheap add-in card, but for many it's still too early to be useful for more than a tech demo.

------------------------------ You need a license to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) - RED GREEN. GA to SK
HD Freedom: 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
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rubix_1011   11-14-2008 at 03:33:29 PM
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YES! Time to dust off the Voodoo 4500 PCI...wait...no. :)

------------------------------ The Pastafarian belief of heaven stresses that it contains beer volcanoes and a stripper factory. Hell is oddly similar, except that the beer is stale, and the strippers have VD
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